Tipping Point Ch 02

Chapter 2: What next?

A trip to the bank Monday afternoon allowed me to retrieve some things from our safe deposit box, including life insurance policies (all mine), a few certificates of deposit, again in my name, and some of my late father's military medals. I left everything else behind. I had no use for her jewelry, or her family papers. I did notice a fairly new insurance policy made out in her name. I looked inside to see who the beneficiary was, and saw that it was Tommy. Somehow, that didn't surprise me.

What did surprise me was that Sylvia hadn't attempted to contact me at all up to that afternoon. Perhaps she was expecting me to return in the near future. That wasn't going to happen. It left me with one more task. I needed a lawyer who could handle the divorce, and any problems I ran into with Faraday and Crosse. I couldn't afford one of the big time firms, so I looked for a private practice that might be a bit more reasonably priced if problems arose. I was hoping that Sylvia wouldn't contest the divorce.

Looking through the Yellow Pages, I finally decided on a small firm that was located in our suburban area. I punched in the number on my cell phone and waited for a response. An older sounding woman answered the phone.

"Carmen Croft, Attorney at Law," she said crisply.

"Uhm ... my name is Stan Copely, and I need to talk to a lawyer about a divorce, and some issues about Ohio labor law. Can Mr. Croft help me?"

There was a slight hint of laughter in her voice as she answered, "First of all, it's Ms. Croft, and yes, she can help you with both family and labor law. Would you like to make an appointment?"

"Yes, ma'am, I would. Thank you."

"Well, I see Ms. Croft has some time available tomorrow afternoon, just after four pm. Will that be satisfactory?"

"Yes, ma'am, that will be fine." I was pleased that I would be able to see her that quickly.

"Very well then, Mr. Copely, she'll see you at four o'clock tomorrow."

"Thank you." I snapped the phone closed, pleased that I had accomplished finding a lawyer so quickly, and also one who could assist me with both the divorce and any problems that might crop up with F & C. I sat back in the motel chair, wondering what else I had to do that I hadn't thought of. Perhaps Ms. Croft could give me some advice regarding that tomorrow.

The TV was on, but I wasn't really paying much attention to it and I began to fall asleep. I suppose the tension and turmoil of the past two days was catching up to me, but whatever the reason, I was having a hard time staying awake. I was expecting Tommy to arrive from work in a few minutes, and we could decide what to do about supper. I hadn't managed to do any shopping other than for some breakfast fixings and sandwich materials for my son's lunch.

The chime of my cell phone caught me by surprise and it took me a few seconds to extract it from my pocket.

"Hello?"

"Where the hell are you, Stan?" came Sylvia's demanding bark.

I almost flipped the phone closed at that, but held it out in front of me for a moment.

"Stan? Stan? Answer me!" she shouted from the little device.

"What do you want?" I wasn't in a particularly conciliatory mood, but I kept myself under control, not raising my voice.

"I want to know where you are, and why you aren't at home."

"I thought I covered that ground Saturday morning, Sylvia. It thought I made it clear I was leaving and not coming back." I was working hard to keep my voice calm and even.

"Are you still going on about that? You can't be serious. You're just going to walk out on me after all these years?" She was still demonstrating a belligerent attitude.

"I already have. Haven't you noticed?" I was starting to get a little snarky myself.

"You owe me the courtesy of at least talking about it," she demanded again.

"There's nothing to discuss. I've made up my mind, and nothing that's happened has caused me to want to change it. If you took the trouble to listen to yourself, you'd understand why I am doing what I am doing. Courtesy hasn't been your strong suit lately."

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"What are you going to do now?" she asked in a calmer, quieter voice.

"I'll be talking to a lawyer tomorrow about seeking a divorce. I've already resigned from F & C, so in two weeks, I'll be officially unemployed. Oh ... and just so you don't worry ... Tommy is staying with me. He's fine, in case you're wondering." I thought that would slow her down considerably, and I was right.

"A divorce? You're serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious."

There was another pause, and this time the unmistakable sound of a sob. I had finally gotten through to her.

"Is there anything I can do to make you change your mind?" she asked quietly.

"I can't think of anything, to be honest. This isn't something I just dreamed up on Saturday morning. This has been coming for some time. In fact, it's been coming for years. I just got to the point where I wasn't going to go on with our marriage the way it was, and you couldn't see what you had become. I took it for as long as I could."

"What am I supposed to do? I don't want to be alone," she whined softly.

"Sylvia, you've been alone in our house for quite a while. You've had very little to do with me or Tommy, and lately, what communications we have had weren't very pleasant. I don't know why, but you're a pretty unhappy woman, and when I tried to talk to you about it, you just shut me out. After a while, I quit trying."

I could hear her crying now, and I was starting to feel a bit guilty ... and sad. Was it all her fault? I'd been over this ground in my head many times in the past. I knew I had contributed to the problem with my constant travel, but her unwillingness to communicate and at least try to help us get through a bad period had been the most frustrating part. She had created a wall around herself, and I couldn't break it down.

"Maybe I can change," she moaned.

"You're still young, Sylvia. You and I have half our lives ahead of us. I've come to the conclusion that I can start again. I need to start again. I can't live with the unhappiness I've been tolerating these past years."

"So ... there's no hope for us?"

"I don't see any," I admitted. "Best we just go on and ...." I didn't finish the comment.

"Will I see you and Tommy again?"

"Probably, somewhere along the way. I've told Tommy not to take sides. I know you love him, and I know he loves you, but ... he needs some space too. He'll be okay. He plans to go back to school in the new year. I'm sure he'll tell you about it. I'll help him with his tuition."

"I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe you're going to do this to me," she wailed.

I almost lost my temper as she distilled our problems down to herself, with no thought about anything else. I doubted she would ever understand how I felt. There wasn't much point in trying to convince her.

"Goodbye, Sylvia. I'll let you know when the paperwork is ready. I'm sorry it's come to this."

I pushed the END button on my phone, the sound of her sobs in my ear. I don't think she expected this kind of a conversation when she called.

Tommy arrived a few minutes later, looking tired but smiling. Being on his feet all day couldn't be easy, but he enjoyed problem solving with computers. Many of the store's customers were neophytes like me, users without much comprehension of how all the systems worked. When things go wrong, we need someone to help us figure it out ... or just fix it ... whatever. Tommy liked that part of the job.

My son grabbed a quick shower and we headed for the supermarket for some take-out from the deli counter. A while later we were back at the motel, enjoying our impromptu meal. As we finished our food, I briefed Tommy on the day's activities, including my contacting a divorce lawyer and my conversation with his mother.

"I think she's finally figured out this is real and not just some temper tantrum on my part. I've told her you're with me, and you're okay. Have you talked to Jilly yet?"

"Yeah, I called her right away on Saturday when you left, and I told her I would try and get away too. She knows I'm here, so don't be surprised if she calls."

"No problem. She's a nice girl. You're lucky to have her."

"Dad ... I told Jilly about Mom. I mean, about my thinking she might be seeing some other guy. She suggested we follow her and find out what we can. You might want to know that. You know ... for the divorce."

"I'm not much at playing private detective. I wouldn't know how to go about it. Anyway, how do you know when she's going to go out?"

"It was almost always on Tuesday and Thursday when you were away. She'd leave about seven or eight, and come home sometime near midnight. I'm not sure about that, because most of the time I was asleep and I didn't hear her come in. Do you want to come with us?"

"No ... no, I don't think so. You go ahead if you want to, but don't do anything foolish. I don't want you or Jilly getting into trouble or getting hurt. It's not going to change what I'm going to do anyway."

"Okay ... well, tomorrow, we thought we'd sit outside the house in her dad's car, and if she comes out, we'd follow her."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Well ... we'll find something to keep us occupied," he grinned.

I went into the office the next morning to see if there were any additional assignments. There were two, both in different parts of the territory. I contacted the customers to determine how urgent the problems were, then booked my flights to handle them in order of importance. My travel reservations were again made on-line by myself, putting an end to my adversarial relationship with Mrs. Fracas. I would be on the road Wednesday morning and home at a sensible hour on Friday afternoon. I no longer felt any obligation to play by the F & C rules. My only responsibility was to do my job, and do it well.

I could probably handle one, or maybe even two more jobs the following week. I already had two simple assignments, so it might be possible to have an efficient week to finish my career with my ex-employer. I wondered how much we might have saved the company if we had been allowed to work our own schedule instead of the preconceived one that management had determined for us. Over these past three years I thought it would probably have been in the thousands.

Since I was going to be on the road for the balance of the week beginning Wednesday, I needed to get my apartment search under way. I had circled a number of possibilities in the paper and began a phone campaign to line up some viewings for the weekend. I had already renewed our rental on the motel room for another week. I was hoping we didn't have to stay here much longer. I would include Tommy, and even Jilly in our search if she was interested.

When I boarded the plane on Wednesday morning, I had a lot to think about. My meeting with Carmen Croft the previous afternoon had been very helpful, and gave me a sense that things might be going my way for a change. We left the divorce issues 'till last because she was fascinated by the treatment I had received at Faraday and Crosse.

When I first stepped into her office, I saw an attractive young woman, perhaps in her early twenties. I assumed it was a secretary, so I introduced myself.

"Good afternoon, I'm Stan Copely and I have an appointment with Ms. Croft."

"Hi, Mr. Copely. I'll be right with you. She finished some filing and walked toward me, extending her hand. "I'm Carmen, nice to meet you."

"Oh ... you caught me by surprise. I didn't expect someone so young," I stumbled.

She laughed, "That's all right, I get that all the time. I really am a lawyer, and I really do know what I'm doing."

"When I called earlier, I was sure I talked to an older woman."

"That would have been my mother. She used to work as a paralegal, and now she helps me around the office. She's gone home to make supper for my grandmother and me."

"All in the family, huh?"

"Yeah. It's great. I'm just in my third year of private practice, so I can use all the free help I can get." She had an upbeat and confident manner about her, and I felt more at ease than I had a couple of minutes earlier.

Anyway, back to Carmen's reaction to my rules at work. To begin with, they had never issued an employee contract, or any other written form of employment regulations. Old man Faraday never needed them. His word was good. But today, with the current management, they were abusing the rights of some of their employees, and I was one of the abused. Carmen was almost rubbing her hands in glee when I gave her a verbal review of their "rules" for service technicians. She said she almost lost track of the number of violations of state labor law as she rapidly wrote on her legal pad.

When we got around to the subject of my divorce, she listened to my story without comment. I didn't get any sense that she was taking sides, but she didn't really encourage me either. At one point, she asked a very specific question.

"Mr. Copely, will your life be better with or without your wife by your side?"

I almost answered on impulse that it would be better, but the look in her eyes told me to think more carefully about that question.

"If I could turn back the clock somehow ... back to when we were in love and when I was happy in my job, I'd say it would be better with her. But in the last few years, it's all changed. Today ... I'd have to say it would be better without."

"Do you think your job had an effect on your relationship with your wife?"

I should have guessed this question was coming. After all, I'd been asking myself the same thing over and over again.

"Yes. It couldn't help but put pressure on the marriage when I was away so much. But ... and it's a big but ... I tried several times to get Sylvia to talk to me about it, trying and get her feelings out in the open. I never succeeded. So ... I guess the truth is that the job hurt the marriage, but my wife didn't do anything to prevent it. She never once hinted I should quit and find something else to do."

Carmen sat quietly looking at me, thinking about what I had said, I suppose.

"Mr. Copely, I'm going to suggest we leave the matter of divorce on hold for a bit. If you don't mind, I'd like to concentrate on your job and your employer's responsibilities. Would that be okay?"

"Yeah, I suppose. I'm not in a rush to get divorced. I just want to put an end to the misery. I don't see how we could reconcile, but I don't feel like we need to charge ahead full speed."

"Good. I think that's a smart decision. In the meantime, we can go to work on Faraday and Crosse. So, here's my suggestion."

She laid out her strategy and I smiled when I heard it. She was one clever young lady. I think, just by dumb luck, I had found a very good lawyer to look after my interests. One of the things she asked me to do was to list all the "rules" I could think of, as well as just how I spent my time on the road, hour by hour. I would list these things over the next few days, and then I would meet with her again and she would begin to carry out our strategy.

I wanted to get this deal in motion, so I began almost immediately to write down all the restrictions and directives that I could remember, past and present. It took an hour or so, but I was fairly confident I hadn't forgotten anything major. As far as the work routine when I traveled, I began with my trip to the airport on Sunday, and documented just how I spent my days with each customer. I made a note that my obligation was to complete my work, regardless of how many hours it took, but I was still expected to stick to my pre-arranged schedule no matter what. That led to long hours in some situations where the problems were complex or difficult, as well as some situations where I would be finished several hours ahead of expectations, but again, locked into the schedule.

Once I got started on my assignment, I found myself completely immersed in how I conducted myself in the territory, working on the company's behalf. I didn't gloss it up or sugar-coat it, I just put down the facts as I knew them. I got a minor brain wave and included the names of all my customer contacts as reference for checking the authenticity of my records. I had advised Carmen that I was a bit of a pack-rat, and had all my call and expense reports from years before, and could confirm my activities that way. She gave me a two-hundred watt smile when she heard that.

I was loading all this information onto my laptop. And it was my laptop. The company declined to provide us with one, even though we needed them to do our jobs properly. My laptop files had plenty of information on them as well. I was pretty confident that Carmen would have enough to confront F & C when the time came. But not just yet.

My zone was listed as Mid-West, and that encompassed everything between the Mississippi River west to the Rockies and from Canada to Mexico; a hell of a lot of territory. The main centers of activity were around St. Louis, Denver, Kansas City, Omaha, and Dallas. I had the largest territory with the most travel. As the number of service technicians slowly declined, I was picking up more and more of the slack where our coverage was weak. So, throw in Minneapolis and Green Bay, but Milwaukee and Chicago were not included. In the wisdom of our brilliant leader, they belonged in a different territory. It was just one more example of the lame-brained thinking that was running the company.

My three day trip this week began in Jefferson City, Missouri, then to Kansas City. Sometimes, my bookings weren't always going to work out, but by talking to my customers, they had come to know just how tricky it was for me to get to all my calls in an efficient manner. They were pretty understanding and gave me a lot of flexibility. It was one of the benefits of having made good friends and providing reliable service over a long period of time. If an emergency arose, well, we'd figure out how to cope with that and circumvent the tight controls that F & C put on our travel. I thought to myself that without the interference, we could have provided better service at a lower cost if I had been allowed to use my experience to take advantage of my customer relationships.

I got all my work done, and after telling my customers that I was leaving F & C, even had time to socialize with a few of my old friends at the two firms. They all wished me well and wondered aloud how they would get by with a new man. I promised to let them know where I ended up, and they all had my card with my personal cell phone number on it. I encouraged them to phone if there was a way I could help them. One more week, and my F & C days would be done.

I was back at our motel just before six on Friday and found both Tommy and Jilly waiting for me. I was invited to join them at Jilly's for a home-cooked meal. I had met Maureen and Dick Forester on a couple of occasions. They approved of Tommy as their daughter's boyfriend, and that made it easier on both children and parents. I took a quick shower and changed clothes before joining them for the short drive to the Forester home.

"So ... what did your private detective work turn up?" I asked as we set out.

Jilly laughed out loud. "Tell him, Tommy."

"Uhm ... well ... nothing on Tuesday. Mom didn't go out as far as we could tell. The lights were on in the living room and when we left at nine-thirty, she was still home."

"Come on, Tommy. Tell him the rest," Jilly prodded.

"We had a problem come up. It was cold out, so the windows kept steaming up. We couldn't see much, so we had to keep wiping them," he admitted bashfully.

I started to laugh and Jilly joined me. "Some private detectives you two turned out to be," I brayed. "What about Thursday."